Transforming Justice Conflicts While peacemaking strategies are an intervention used as after visible incidents of conflict escalation, peacebuilding provides opportunities to repair the underlying causes of harm, including transforming injustice conflicts into new patterns of justice. Peacebuilding includes proactive measures to build people’s capabilities for handling large and small conflicts, non-violently and justly, to transform social relations toward sustainable peace. Such capabilities flourish through community and skill building activities to enhance students’ constructive communication skills and provide a safe environment for students to share their opinions and respectfully listen to others. [explain …] Conflict transformation refers to the comprehensive set of processes for building the social-institutional relationships that support durable, just peace. Image “Conflict transformation is to envision and respond to the ebb and flow of social conflict as life-giving opportunities for creating constructive change processes that reduce violence, increase justice in direct interaction and social structures, and respond to real-life problems in human relationships.”(John Paul Lederach) Building Durable Peace Building durable peace in human relationships and everyday life requires multi-faceted social transformation: peacebuilding. Key elements of conflict transformation for durable peace can be symbolized by parts of the living body (Lederach, 2006). At the heart of conflicts are the healthy and humanized relationships that pump fresh blood, enriched with motivation and opportunities for hope. The head envisions the perspectives of various parties and the possibilities for positive change emerging out of a conflict. The hands, in turn, put the vision into action on the small scale, through peacemaking dialogue. To create long-term, lasting mechanisms and processes to create and protect current and future peace, the body also needs legs and feet: development and institutionalization of workable, inclusive, caring and just social structures and processes, to serve as platforms and fertile ground for peaceful human relationships including problem-solving. So, conflict transformation for peace-building includes conflict learning and analysis (understanding conflict — the ‘head’ element) and peacemaking processes (resolution of conflict episodes – the ‘hands’ element). Conflict transformation also includes proactive longer-term efforts to repair and heal social relationships (the ‘heart’ element), and to build or rebuild inclusive, mutually respectful inter-identity relationships, social institutions and structures to establish and protect peaceful and just relations (the ‘legs and feet’ element).Thus, peacebuilding citizenship education involves teaching, practicing capabilities, and developing processes to enable people to understand and handle conflict in a transformative manner (constructive dialogue, inclusive relationships, creative cooperation, repairing injustice)—before and during, as well as after, episodes of escalated conflict. Fundamental Capabilities for Peacebuilding Some fundamental capabilities for peacebuilding include critical thinking, constructive communication (self-expression and dialogue), and collaborative team work engagement. In general, discussion involves sharing perspectives and proposals, sometimes including deliberation to discern, select and plan, citizen actions to carry out (that is, to work toward collective decisions). In one participating Canadian school, teachers had started a school-based student club to discuss and address social justice issues. The club was running an awareness, in-kind donation, and fundraising campaign for global charity. Thus, besides the discussion component, the presence of these clubs increases awareness about current events and injustices in different parts of the world. Dialogue Dialogue is mutual expression and careful listening for understanding and relationship building. Dialogue is not just talk: it is a peacemaking and peacebuilding tool, involving careful listening and thinking together as well as speaking, that aims to build bridges between disputants to figure out how to understand, resolve or transform conflicts. Debates Debates are processes in which participants address and defend conflicting points of view and proposals on difficult, uncomfortable questions, such as whether Western democracies have an obligation to accept refugees fleeing violent conflict. Although debates can emphasize competition (winning), they do not need to do so. Such opportunities to confront and respond to conflicting perspectives can foster perspective taking and empathy to overcome exclusion of those who are often marginalized. To debate whether genetically modified crops would increase the world supply yield, organize the class (or well-supported small groups) into two or three groups, each assigned to defend one point of view on a given proposition or question. Students can be assigned these opening positions either according to their chosen point of view or assigning (and later switching) sides. Get students to work collaboratively within each team to prepare their persuasive statements and proposals, explaining these in relation to their interests and common interests. Each student in each team then presents their point of view to the class (or the small group). Team members ask each other questions to clarify, constructively critique, and elaborate each perspective. Examples One Canadian teacher, as a language arts task, taught students to debate a social issue: “The discussion could be the big part, when you want them to communicate their feeling about the social issue. Furthermore, take pros and cons, and divide them to two groups, and they have to brainstorm all the ideas. And we do the whole thing where do your opening statements, and you would have a point, and they would retaliate with the cons or pros of what the other group was saying, and final closing remarks.” One Mexican teacher, for an integrated language arts, science and civics-ethics activity, conducted a class debate on the differences and similarities between boys and girls, to foment a perspective that boys and girls might be physically different but not fundamentally different and should be treated the same. This teacher also presented how the law protects women’s rights. A teacher in another Mexican school facilitated a class debate on who should take responsibility for provoking and avoiding domestic violence. Outcomes A competitive debate could lead to animosity or tension among students or colleagues, lack of sleep, low levels of achievement or reduced productivity (Barton & McCully, 2012). In contrast, handling conflict cooperatively in educational settings can enhance students’ critical thinking and academic skills, constructive communication capacities (such as perspective taking and listening to others’ perspectives), and self-esteem (Johnson and Johnson, 2009). Structured Academic Controversy is a cooperative debate, for educational purposes, conducted in small groups. Each pair of students is assigned to prepare to defend a perspective on a conflict, to debate it with a pair assigned an opposing viewpoint. Next, the two pairs in each group switch their positions, prepare, and articulate proposals and rationales in favor of the opposite point of view, before working with their small group to achieve a consensus decision. This approach to constructive conflict education carries the energy of a debate, but in a cooperative instead of competitive context. Because students follow the process in small groups (scaffolded by simple steps and assessment points), everyone participates: both listening and speaking persuasively about contrasting proposals on the same issue, and then working cooperatively toward consensus rather than “winning” or losing as in a competitive debate. Debriefing After a debate or Structured Academic Controversy exercise, a teacher could organize the group’s debriefing reflections through a community sharing or peace circle, circulating a talking piece to invite each student to share their experiences: How did you feel about taking a certain position and defending it, when you firmly believe in it? How did it feel like to defend the ‘other’ position, that you do not believe in? “I act toward opponents as I would have them act towards me. I want the opposing pair to listen to me, so I listen to them. I want the opposing pair to include my ideas in their thinking, so I include their ideas in my thinking. I want the opposing pair to see the issue from my perspective, so I take their perspective” (Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 48).